The government must set "affordable and reasonable" regulatory fees to facilitate network rollouts in unserved and underserved areas in the Philippines, according to a ranking official of telco titan PLDT Inc.

Roy D. Ibay, who sits as the head of regulatory affairs for Smart Communications Inc., said some regulatory fees imposed by local government units are "arbitrary," listing them as tower fees, inspection fees, and audit fees.

These, he said, are "major roadblocks" to the growth of the sector.

"To be able to provide equitable and faster access to our services in priority rollout areas, there must be affordable and reasonable regulatory and radio spectrum fees," Ibay said.

He said his group proposes a uniform spectrum users fee based on a per kHz per population. This, he said, will "encourage the rollout, instead of the prevailing wireless broadband formula that discourages and punishes deployment of more wireless facilities in using a per station, per kilohertz computation."

"Last year alone, Smart spent P2.4 billion on fees, which could have been spent on actual physical facilities to improve telecom services," he said.

He added that while the government's initiative to speed up the approvals of permits of passive telecom tower infrastructure has helped the company secure around 22,000 fixed and wireless permits as of June, the telco still views that "permits and fees for fiber optic roll outs" should also be given priority.

PLDT said in March that it expects its telco core income to grow by about 6 percent to as much as P30 billion this year, driven mainly by the projected growth of its home, wireless and enterprise businesses.

Manuel V. Pangilinan, the company's president and chairman, said the profit guidance of P29 billion to P30 billion is in line with the continued growth of the telco's bottomline, as it continues to surmount the negative effects of the pandemic.

Pangilinan also reported that the telco core income for 2020 reached P28.1 billion, a 4-percent increase from P27.1 billion the year prior, as revenues climbed by 9 percent to P171.5 billion from P157.7 billion due to the surge in the demand for data and broadband as the pandemic-induced lockdowns brought much work and schooling to cyberspace.

Its net income reached P24.3 billion, an 8-percent increase from P22.5 billion the year prior, owing to the growth in revenues and the sale of some of its assets.

He described this financial performance as "stellar" despite what he called as the "year from hell," when multiple calamities hit the country and the spread of Covid-19.

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